Guilt trips are a common experience for people who have never committed a crime. They may feel guilty about eating a fatty dessert, not being responsible, not responding positively to a friend's request for help, having "bad" thoughts, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, or making a mistake in public. If feelings of guilt persist from these daily misdemeanors, it can lead to a life with shame as a poisonous undercurrent. People who feel ashamed about minor issues live difficult lives because they are constantly beating themselves up for being "bad." Knowing they are guilty, they can punish themselves with a vengeance for things that would never exclude them from heaven.

In Woody Allen's most philosophically fascinating film, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), we are introduced to the issues of crime, guilt, and shame. It is a movie about a well-known professional, married man (played by Martin Landau) in an affair with a possessive younger woman (Anjelica Huston) and how he decides to have her killed after she threatens to tell his wife about the affair. His decision and her demise initially create terrible guilt pangs, until he realizes that he is getting away with the crime. In the film, Allen is the voice of morality, so his thinking adds tension to the film as the issue of guilt, shame, and the moral order are raised. We watch as the older man comes to a resolution, even though, as moral beings ourselves, it makes us terribly uncomfortable.

What Allen's film reveals is that there are certain acts, like killing, that are so morally repugnant, we need to feel guilt and shame or the whole moral order is put into question. However, the vast majority of people do not commit crimes of this magnitude, yet they suffer from feeling guilty about the "small stuff." If you are a person who goes on guilt trips for the little things, it is time to see how the resulting feelings of shame control your mind and your life. What you see may free you up a bit, so you can smile more often.

Your movie

In a moment, you will use your imagination to get a clearer picture of your inner movie about shame. The point of understanding this pattern of thoughts, feelings, and effects is to deepen your awareness of its dynamics and impact, so you can make conscious choices and create a new movie to live within.

Recall a time when you felt ashamed. Close your eyes and replay the experience in your imagination. Then, write a brief description of that drama below, carefully including the thoughts that supported it, the feelings that arose from those thoughts, and how those feelings affected what you said and did. (Enter your response in the following box or in your word processor window.)

What effects did this drama have on you and others?

Consequences

Briefly describe what you get from feeling shame. What are the payoffs?

Briefly describe the price you pay for it. What parts of yourself and your life do you sacrifice when shame dominates you too much?

Is what you are getting in payoffs worth the sacrifices you are making? Explain.

New choices

Having become more aware of this movie, including what you get from it and what you sacrifice, what new choices in thinking and being are revealed to you? Note them.

Create a new movie

Relying on those choices and your creativity, sketch out ideas for a different movie which incorporates new ways of thinking and being. As you create your new movie, be aware that you are of two minds because you have a dual nature. Your duality gives you the capacity to shift from one thought to its opposite in a search for balance. For example, there is a side of you that is unashamed about the small things that you've come to regard as "sins" and a part that is willing to forgive you for such small transgressions. How will cultivating those capacities alter how you live?

As you look back on your work, identify the first step you will take to make the changes you designed.

With your eyes closed, imagine living in the new movie you created.

When shame about little "misdemeanors" becomes too dominant, we pay too high a price. In contrast, creating a more balanced view of guilt is a way to use and not be abused by it. We may appreciate the guilt trips that keep us from behaving in clearly destructive ways, but not take the guilt trips about the smaller issues, like eating a hot fudge sundae from time to time. By letting our guilty feelings warn us against taking a careless action, we live more wisely. By diminishing some of the unnecessary guilt and shame, we create lives where we can smile more often.

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